Saturday, August 28, 2010

Remaining Latos starts, and a fun Quiz

Had a great podcast Thursday night. Thanks to all those folks filling the chat room with commentary. I had a caller - first one I've had in over a month (ballgirl hasn't called in a while, although she did chat us up last night). Unfortunately for me, the caller broke into Spanish, and I'm probably the only guy in South Bay that doesn't understand Spanish. Not sure what to do, I ended up cutting his mike. Sorry dude. Maybe I should have asked him to switch to English first.

At any rate, the whole show is worth a listen.

I did want to elaborate, or at least mention, one of the discussion points that came up, and that's the number of starts Mat Latos has left this season. As you no doubt are aware, Latos started the season with a 150 inning ceiling on his arm. As the year progressed, and Latos matured into the best starting pitcher on the club, that ceiling was raised to 150-180 innings. After leaving the game tonight, he's thrown 149 2/3, and his start tonight was after he was pushed off his normal start date of Tuesday night.

So what's the season got left for him? (As an aside, Mark Grant/Mark Neely discussed this during the game. Grant thinks Latos has 7 starts left)

1 Sept @ Arizona. Since Garland is behind him in the rotation, I could definitely see Bud Black sending Garland on short rest and skipping Latos, since 2 Sept is an off-day. No Start

6 Sept vs LA. Will be 10 days between starts. He might start earlier in the week against Colorado. Start

11 Sept vs SF. Latos has owned the Giants this season. Start

16 Sept at STL. Here we get into the 'it might depend on what the standings are' final two weeks. If the Padres maintain their current advantage over San Francisco, the magic number for this game would be 9. I'm thinking the Padres probably start him. Start

21 Sept at LA. This is the day after an off-day, so a good date to skip Latos if desired. And it's probably desired. No Start

26 Sept vs CIN. Probably his last start of the regular season. If all stays as is right now, this will be the game the Padres clinch the division. Start

1 Oct at SF. Unless they need to win this game in order to fight off the Giants, there's no way Latos pitches. No Start

So I can see Latos making 4 more starts this season. There has been talk about spot starts in September, for Stauffer or perhaps Luebke, which makes this plan all the more probable. 6 innings in 4 starts would be 24 innings, and put Latos at 173 innings headed into the post-season.

I'm also willing to bet Latos will start one game in each round if the Padres get all the way to the World Series. So figure he'll top out at about 200 innings this season. I just can't see SD shutting him down if they are making a deep run into October.

Finally for your weekend viewing pleasure, after the jump we have a riddle. Using the pictures (one NSFW) as your only hints, what is the line score at this point in the game. Leave your guess in the comments. Answer Monday.